Irreligious Bible Student

Hello, everyone. I was an atheist until at the age of 27 I began to study the Bible in order to debunk it. I learned quickly that the Bible was grossly misrepresented by apostate Christendom's adoption of pagan teachings such as the immortal soul from Socrates, the trinity from Plato, the cross from Constantine, hell from Dante and Milton, Easter from Astarte, Christmas from the winter solstice celebrations, and most recently the Rapture from Darby.

Though I have never and will never be a part of organized religion, my beliefs are not entirely dissimilar to that of The Jehovah's Witnesses, due to the removal of the aforementioned pagan influence. I have studied briefly the history of the major world religions, Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Shintoism and Taoism and have published sacred and non-sacred texts from each of these online: The Dhammapada, Four Noble Truths, Paradise Lost, Divine Comedy, Analects Of Confucius, Bhagavad Gita, Qur'an, Pirqe Aboth, Nihongi, Kojiki, Tao Te Ching and Chuang Tzu.

Having been an atheist most of my life and given that nearly everyone I know is atheist, I think I understand and respect where most of you are coming from. I don't believe in "converting" anyone to anything, but I do think the atheist tends to be mislead when it comes to the Bible. Not that that matters much, except for that I do enjoy, given the opportunity, to correct them in thoughtful and polite discussion and debate.

Replies to This Discussion

If someone tells me that I should not 'feel' the way I do, or 'think' the way I do, or eat shell fish because it offends 'them', or 'they' condemn me to hell because for a long list of petty offences, what does say to you? If I do any of these, or more, inspite of 'them', am I co-dependent, or free man?

Anyone here have a working knowledge of the concept of 'co-dependency'? I am a little thin at 2:10am..LOL

Or the daily gatherng of atheists, picking on the most recent theist that has volunteered to be the next meal! Don't get me wrong, after a life time of putting up with theist grandstanding, meanness, falt finding and general cursing to hell, it does seem that turn around is fair play.

I just can't find any 'place' to send the theists to. When we have paved hell over, pulled out the fence posts, kicked the gate down, and told satan to get a real job, it just looks like we are stuck with them. It could be worse, but I just can't bring myself to it. I am just trying to have a nice day...

@David there are a lot of Atheists here against one - Dearest David, I am not 'against you' I just feel so sorry for you, and just want to pat you on the head and say, "Everything will be alright, there,there.'

Claiming to be bright, is ok. Claiming to have deeper wisdom than others does open one up to the 'extream claims' provision of honesty. It appears that DH has not yet satisfied any demand to justify an 'extream claim'.

It might be that DH will not learn anything about atheism, or we about the bible, but honesty can be a worthy pursuit! I support this deeper quest...

@Archy - Gee, Archy, how many times have I told you, you must 'Play Nice', with Unseen, but even more so christians, especially when they are angry and unhappy. They can't help 'believing' in a vicious, malicious tantrum throwing god, apparently. They can't seem to help throwing vitriole at anybody who disagrees with them, or show them real interpretations, mistakes and contradictions in their book, and saying really bad words. I just close my eyes, and don't read such words. What happened to polite discussion and debate, I just don't know. They just can't help themselves. He is delusional, so one mustn't make fun of such people. One must feel sorry for them :)